1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a set of universal interface conversion device, and particularly to a universal conversion device, which is possible for a data storage device with IDE interface (including EIDE and ADAPTI storage devices) to connect with the input/output port of a personal computer with various interfaces (such as IDE, USB, PCMCIA, or Firewire).
2. Description of Related Art
It is known that there are different types of input/output ports (such as IDE, USB, PCMCIA, and Firewire or IEEE-1394) available for a personal computer nowadays to connect with various kinds of data storage devices, especially the external data storage devices. Due to the progress of technology, a lot of newer and faster input/output ports are developed to adapt with the personal computer, and it means various kinds of external data storage devices can be connected to the personal computer via different interfaces.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional external data storage device illustrated comprises an enclosure (not shown in the diagram for simplicity) that contains a data storage device 10, a ribbon cable 20 and an interface conversion circuit board 30. The data storage device can be a hard disk drive, CD-RW, or DVD, and the hard disk drive is used as an explanatory storage device. The data storage device 10 further has a IDE interface. The ribbon cable 20 has a female IDE interface connector 21 to connect with a male IDE interface connector 11 on the data storage device 10 and connect with another female IDE interface connector 22. The interface conversion circuit board 30 further comprises a male IDE interface connector 31, an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) 32, and a female interface connector 33. The male IDE interface connector 31 connects with the female IDE interface connector 22 and the integrated circuit 32 may convert the IDE interface signal to a second interface signal of the interface such as USB, PCMCIA or Firewire. The interface cable 40 has a male interface connector 41 to connect with the female interface connector 33 and the other end thereof (not shown) connects with the input/output port of a personal computer.
The preceding conventional arrangement makes the data storage device 10 only possible to connect with a corresponding input/output port on the personal computer in accordance with the type of the integrated circuit 32. For instance, if the integrated circuit 32 is a circuit for converting the IDE interface to the USB interface only, the data storage device 10 is restricted to connect with a personal computer with USB interface. Since the data storage device and the interface conversion circuit broad are contained inside an enclosure, if the personal computer has a PCMCIA interface instead of IDE interface, the entire interface conversion circuit board has to be changed to another interface conversion circuit board that can convert the IDE interface to the PCMCIA interface, and the interface cable 40 has to be replaced too. When the data storage device 10 is to be connected to an input/output port with various interfaces, various interface conversion circuit boards 30 and interface cables 40 have to be prepared in advance. The replacement of the interface conversion circuit board requires disassembling and reassembling the enclosure, which often time require special tools and thus cause great inconvenience or difficulty for non-technical users, such that the user may incur a burden of increased cost and an inconvenience in use.
In order to flexibly connect with the personal computer, the external data storage device in this invention is designed to consists of a storage enclosure (which is not shown in the drawing for simplicity) that contains a data storage device 10, a connector conversion circuit board 50, which is defined here as the Universal Storage Interface Bus (USIB) connector conversion board and an USIB interface conversion cable 60. The data storage device is connected to the USIB connector conversion board by way of a standard ribbon cable inside a storage enclosure to form the external storage device, exposing only the MC-36 connector 52 for connecting with the USIB interface conversion cable 60 when in use. The USIB connector broad, that converts a typical IDE connector to a standard MC-36 female connector, has a defined pin out assignment listed in Table 2 and this defined pin out assignment is called Universal Storage Interface Bus (USIB) in the text of the present invention. At one end of the interface cable 63 is a dongle 60 that encloses an interface conversion circuit board, which is defined here as the USIB interface conversion board. The USIB interface conversion board converts the IDE interface signals coming out from the MC-36 connector to USB, Firewire, PCMCIA or other input/output (I/O) interfaces depending on the type of interface conversion ASIC that is included in the USIB interface conversion board. While in use, the connector 62 of the interface cable 63 is attached to the connector 52 of the USIB connector conversion board and the other end of the cable 63 is attached to the I/O port of the computer which is not shown in the diagram for simplicity. Using this design, the same external storage device can be attached to computers via USB, PCMCIA, Firewire or other I/O ports by simply attaching the appropriate USIB interface conversion cable to the connector 52 of the external storage device. Users no longer need to disassemble and reassemble the external storage when changing to different I/O interfaces, as is the case with the conventional design.
Since the USIB connector conversion board converts the different IDE connector from all different IDE storage devices to a standard MC-36 connector with same USIB electrical pin out, different external storage devices that incorporated the USIB connector conversion board can all share the same USIB interface conversion cable. So the design of USIB may not only offer a feature of increasing the flexibility of interface connection for the external data storage device but also reduce the amount of the required parts prepared by the manufacturer for different interfaces and a variety of data storage device. Table 1 shown hereinafter is a contrast between the conventional design and the USIB design of external storage device.
TABLE 1NUMBERNUMBEROFOFDEVICE TYPEDRIVESCABLECABLESCONVENTIONAL MODEExternal USB CDRW1USB1External Firewire CDRW2Firewire2External PCMCIA CDRW3PCMCIA3Other External CDRW4Others4External USB HD5USB1External Firewire HD6Firewire2External PCMCIA HD7PCMCIA3Other External HD8Others4External USB DVD9USB1External Firewire DVD10 Firewire2External PCMCIA DVD11 PCMCIA3Other External DVD12 Others4TOTAL12 4USIB MODEExternal CDRW with USIB1USB USIB1connectioninterface cableExternal CDRW with USIB1Firewire USIB2connectioninterface cableExternal CDRW with USIB1PCMCIA USIB3connectioninterface cableExternal CDRW with USIB1Other USIB4connectioninterface cableExternal HD with USIB2USB USIB1connectioninterface cableExternal HD with USIB2Firewire USIB2connectioninterface cableExternal HD with USIB2PCMCIA USIB3connectioninterface cableExternal HD with USIB2Other USIB4connectioninterface cableExternal DVD with USIB3USB USIB1connectioninterface cableExternal DVD with USIB3Firewire USIB2connectioninterface cableExternal DVD with USIB3PCMCIA USIB3connectioninterface cableExternal DVD with USIB3Other USIB4connectioninterface cableTOTAL34